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Making Quieter Highways
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Purdue are investigating ways to make life for those who live near major highways more quiet. They have found that most of the noise is literally where the rubber hits the road, not engine noise or even passing winds. The team has come up with a new form of pavement that is in testing in Arizona and will soon be installed in California. The pavement is simply asphalt with some mixed in rubber."
How will this affect stopping distance? Probably better. But ill bet it dosent last nearly as long as regular pavement.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I lived next to Interstate number 5 last year, and it was like a constant dull roar coming in through the windows. After living for years in the quiet peace of Alaska, it was quite a shock.
If all the noise is from the rubber hitting the road. We need magnetic cars!
no thanks
Now I'm not saying it's the same stuff, but is it really a new finding that it is the tire/road contact that's noisy when this was done at least 6 years ago?
the pavement is simply asphalt with some mixed in rubber
Disposing of tires by making them into roads has been a dream for recyclers and probably the tire industry, but last I heard they had some major problems with galvanic reactions from the ground-up radial belts.
Does anybody know if they've solved that problem?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
A similar compound was invented in the Netherlands ages ago, using concrete (cheaper and easier to handle then rubber). It is called ZOAB ("Zeer Open Asfalt Beton", meaning "Very Open Asphalt Concrete") This highly porous material has several beneficial properties, such as being more quiet, and more efficient in draining water, thus preventing aquaplaning. It is a safer road, alltogether. Now some university is passing this off as a "Great American Invention"?!?!
Same thing happend with airport groundradar. A Norwegian Company invented a groundradar system for airports, allowing safer manouvering of aircraft in dense fog and other low viz situations. This delivered tremendous safety to airports. The FAA wanted it, but it had to be american - can't buy of those eurotrash companies and all that. 8 years down the line, and it still was not working. In the meantime, you have had about 33 near misses at o'hare alone.......
Obviously I shall now be modded down -50 "unpatriotic eurotrash bastard" whatever.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
of course it's the rubber hitting the road. here in michigan the road commission made a serious mistake in implementing a "new" type of cement that was supposed to last longer. however, it turned out it didn't last long(er), in fact it did the opposite. and worst of all it had rivets perpendicular to the tires moving over it creating an obnoxious howling noise. i've seen more the one local news coverages on pissed off people living nearby highways that have to put up with terrible noise pollution.
I read about rubber chunks in asphalt before. Supposedly it lasts longer because when water gets in the nooks and freezes it would normally bust up the surface but with rubber there it gives so pot holes don't form as easily. Another benefit is that using these types of asphalt gives us something to do with old tires that normally sit in a landfill somewhere collecting stagnant water and giving mosquitoes a place to breed. If we can lay a mile of this stuff for $325k instead of concrete or cheaper asphalt but save $2M per mile on sound barriers then that seems like a pretty hot ticket.
That IS pretty DAMN high! The coefficient of friction of rubber on dry asphalt is around 0.6 or 0.7, which is already considered to be pretty high. So logically, adding rubber to asphalt would probably improve the coefficient of friction between the tires and the road, hence decreasing stopping distance and improving cornering.
Physics is the study of everything.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I don't quite remember the night, but I saw it on tv recently, and it kind of got me thinking.
Now I've got a sports car with some noise dampering, but generally I can hear everything. The nice thing is it's shaped really smoothly, so I hardly get any wind noise, so just about all the noise coming in from outside my car is from the road. The thing I notice is that even with current roads (I live in San Diego), the biggest difference is on the ones that are concrete - since they don't buckle like asphalt-covered ones do. Sure, I've noticed that some of them have grooves, which is where I suppose the air is going (and to help with skidding in the rare event of rain) - those ones seem to be the most quiet. But even those get loud if they're not graded right.
Hey, think about it, most of the time a car is fairly quiet, but when you go over a bump, your car is usually louder after you land and reach the minimum point. The other thing I'd say is that maybe it's due to the weight of the vehicles, as there's a huge difference between cars and SUVs/Trucks - and motorcycles are silent except for their engines. So maybe the solution is to stop selling SUVs... yeah, I'll keep dreaming.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
I look forward to hitting the stuff, and they are supposed to be repaving a 21 mile portion of a highway thats not even 3 years old yet. (The highway system in Phoenix is still pretty new and growing)
I don't need a sig
Europe?
Seriously though I agree completely with your statement. However, common sense has long since left our government.
One thing the article doesn't touch on is reusability. One thing that the paving industry likes to pride itself on is that asphalt is almost totally recyclable. However, to my understanding, dense rubbers (such as car tires) aren't reuasable in that way, they can't be melted down and reused with reliability. Would the addition of the rubber have a problem with the recasting of the asphalt? With the amount of repaving that happens every year, what sort of effect will this have on the waste output of a repaving operation?
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
I guess it's different in the states, and possibly elsewhere, but in canada (or at least the handful of cities I've lived in), they've been using rubber in pavement on busy streets for years.
"and motorcycles are silent except for their engines"
Yes. Just like dead fish has a pleasant odor, except for the smell.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Its one more step towards mankind's ultimate dream , bouncy world! Car crash? No problem, you're in bouncy world! Airplane fly into a building? Boing! Ha, Ha, Ha, everybody OK!
I'd be willing to bet that the noisiest highway surface in the country is I-5 in Seattle. I'm not talking about the expansion joints (much of the surface is elevated) but the fact that the concrete has been eroded into visible ruts so you are driving on large chunks of rock. It's deafening inside the car. I recently drove 1200 miles and back (each way) on I-90 and found no section as noisy as that in Seattle. Apparently the problem is studded tires during the winter. It's funny how you see all these old people in the giant cars driving around with studded tires in the winter months even though there's no snow here.
Actually you should be more worried about rain...how it takes to soak into the new asfalt...
Anyway, new tarmack has allready been invented ( to be quiet, yes). It's called ZOAB (Zeer Open Asfalt Beton, which means Realy Open Asfalt Concreet). It's nice airy mix of asfalt & concreet which reduces the time for rain to soak in, making it a lot safer to ride on in heavy rain & is quite a bit quieter..
There are also newer versions that are even quieter, but so far only ZOAB is use on almost all the dutch high-ways.
I wish these people would just combine their efforts instead of staying in that NIH (Not Invented Here) mode.
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
I don't mean a motorcycle either. Try riding a mountain bike at some decent speed. Eventually, at the right speed, it hums quite nicely.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I don't know how or why, but the parent post inspired me to babelfish-recycle it through various languages just for fun. I have some karma to burn, so enjoy at my expense =)
Chinese:
It is more step toward humanity's final dream, has the elastic world! Traffic accident? Without the question, you are in have in the elastic world! The airplane flight enters the building? Boing! Ha, Ha, Ha, hello!
French:
Its more stage towards the final dream of humanity, world bouncy! Car accident? No problem, you are in world bouncy! Fly of plane in a building? Boing! Ha, ha, ha, everyone WELL!
German:
Its more step toward for the crucial dream of mankind, bouncy world! Autoabort? A problem, are not you in bouncy the world! Airplane fly into a building? Boing! Hectar, hectar, hectar, each o.k.!
Italian:
Relative a new point towards the last dream of the humanity, world bouncy! Arrest of the automobile? C$r-nessun.problema, you are in world bouncy! Moscow of the airplane in one construction? Boing! It has, it has, it has, everyone GOOD!
Japanese:
Final dream of the mankind, the world where there is an elasticity many steps than the 1 of that! Automobile accident? There is no world where there is a problem and an elasticity! Growing of airplane to building? Boing! It is good everyone of ha, ha and ha!
Korean:
With mankind ultimate dream, it phase 1 of the world which is cheerful compared to! Car crash? Problem, it is an inside the world which is cheerful spreads out,! At building airplane flight range? Boing! The ha, the ha and the ha all it is good!
Portuguese:
Its one more stage for the final dream of the humanity, world bouncy! Electric noise of the car? No problem, you is in the world bouncy! Fly of the airplane in a building? Boing! Ha, Ha, Ha, all ARE WELL!
Spanish:
His a more passage towards the last dream of the humanity, world of bouncy! Collapse of the car? No problem, you are in world of bouncy! Fly of airplane in a building? Boing! It has, it has, it has, all VERY WELL!
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"The ha, the ha and the ha all it is good!"
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If a wheel has 50 distinct nodules/strips of tread pattern, and is rotating at 264rpm, then it will produce a tone at around 220Hz (or concert pitch A).
If tires were constructed in a less repetitious tread design - perhaps a log periodic or goedel sequence - then it would help eliminate these stray harmonics .
Q.
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I drive on a mile stretch of it that was put down in a test on my way to work here in Phoenix, and there is a 12 mile stretch on another highway here. Its quiet, safe, and no problems with braking or anything else. Its quite a pleasure to drive on